Patrick opened his eyes and lifted his forehead away from something cool. A wooden post. Where was he? He groaned and muttered a curse at the ache in his head. The smell of hay and manure overwhelmed him for a moment while he tried to clear his thoughts. The neigh of a nearby horse confirmed that he was in a stable. What had happened? The lass at the river, he recalled. She’d brought him down with a sling and a stone! He didn’t know anyone who used a sling anymore, save his uncle Tamas. He tried to ask her where she got it but she’d struck him in the head with a stone. Did she know the Fergussons?
He thought of her eyes, ringed in shadow. He’d seen them before, felt the power in them. Last night at the pub. The lass in the shadows. It was she. Hell, she was even more compelling in the light of day. He should have recognized her at the river when she not only sparked his desire, but piqued his curiosity. But what the hell was she doing in Pinmore if she lived here in Pinwherry?
He tried to pull himself up but found his movements restricted. He glared at the rope securing his wrists to the post. Had she done this? Where the hell was he?
He looked around in the shifting light. There was hay under his arse and his head was pounding. Why was he tethered to a damn post?
He yanked on his ties to no avail. The more he yanked, the angrier he became. Whoever did this was going to regret it.
He was still pulling on his knots when he heard the stable doors opening.
“Is he dangerous?” a female voice asked.
“Nay, and I’m certain he is bound,” another voice answered.
It was her. Patrick would remember the silken edge of her voice for the remainder of his days. He didn’t blame her for slinging her stone and knocking him out. She did him a favor by stopping him from proclaiming her beauty one more time. Hell, it had been as if he’d fallen under a spell and every time he should have been fighting for his life, he was praising her. What the hell had come over him? Perhaps it was the smirk that curled her lips, mocking his prettiest words. There was fire in her.
He wasn’t sure if he’d ever forget the sight of her, her willowy locks dancing across her face, her rosy cheeks, her arm lifted over her shoulder as she swung her sling. Her aim was precise. Who had taught her?
She was glorious, vital, and dangerous.
What was she up to? She couldn’t have dragged him here alone. Damn, he recalled her mentioning something about her brothers being close by. He deduced the rest.
He heard her footsteps coming closer and he sat up straighter—as straight as he could with his bound wrists. He refused to appear weak and vulnerable to her. This was her stable. Her brothers had captured him, for what purpose, he didn’t know. It had to be nefarious or he would have been left where’d he’d fallen. He’d come upon the lass, and for doing so she had almost killed him. Why bring him home?
He didn’t care why. He was getting out alive and he’d use her to do it. He knew how to get what he wanted out of women.
She moved forward into the shaft of light from the small window behind him. She gasped upon seeing him there—as if she didn’t know.
“Have ye come to save me?” he asked, surprising her with a wry grin.
He noticed another lass breathing hard behind the first and heaving in her friend’s ear. Her golden hair flashed in the light for a moment, illuminating her pale, angelic face and the familiar crown of daisies now placed on her brow. The dark-haired one pushed her farther back.
Patrick slipped his gaze to the first once again. Her eyes were already on him, wide, curious, guarded eyes, made even darker by the thin line of black kohl encircling them.
“So what’s goin’ to happen now?” he asked her. He knew what he wished would happen. She’d untie him and send her friend away. Whatever concerns he’d had about growing tired of women and trouble faded when he looked at her.
He could see her shapely curves through the gauzy folds of her skirts. She was delicately formed with long, elegant arms and full breasts beneath the delicate fabric of her gown.
“That depends on who you are,” she told him.
He smiled gazing at her full lower lip. She didn’t smile back.
He had no intentions of telling her who he was. The MacGregor name was proscribed. Being one could get him thrown into prison with a paid reward to anyone turning him in. Her brothers couldn’t know he was a MacGregor, so why was he being held captive?
“Why was I brought here?” he asked.
She shook her head and looked down at him. “That’s enough questions from you, but I have one to ask. What were you doing at the river?”
His dimple flashed when his smile deepened along with his tone. “Ye know what I was doin’ there, lass. But if I’m to die fer admirin’ ye, then stay where ye are and let me take m’ fill this time.”
Hell, he couldn’t seem to stop. Sure, he knew what words to use to win a lady’s favor. But he’d never used so many on one lass. He was tempted to ask her to knock him out again.
She smiled, but not the way other lasses smiled when he was trying to seduce them. Hers was a pitying quirk of her mouth, like he was the biggest fool she’d ever come across if he thought she believed a word he said.
“Charlie, are we going to untie him and set him free?”
“Nay, Elsie.”
Charlie? Why would any parent give this beauty a man’s name?
“Untie me and ye’ll never see me again,” Patrick promised. Why would he come back to see her when she was clearly uninterested in him? He found it a wee bit insulting.
“I cannot,” Charlie told him. She moved closer, out of the light, and knelt in the obscurity with him. She smelled of lavender and the wind and made him want to lean in and take a deeper breath.
“But I will tell you this,” she whispered, sending her breath along his nape and making him taut as an over-wound harpstring. “If you are a Fergusson, don’t tell them. If you do, they’ll kill you.”
“Why?” he asked, “And who?” But she was already gone and reaching into the shadows for her friend. Grasping her by the wrist, she pulled Elsie out of the stable and closed the doors.
Whoever this family was, they obviously hated his uncles. But why?
He didn’t have much more time to ponder it when the doors opened again. This time men’s voices filled the stable.
“She molds you and Father like warm clay in her hands.”
“See if he’s awake, Hendry.”
Ah, the brothers had arrived.
Hendry appeared around the stall and stood where Charlie had been moments before. He was tall and thin, easy for Patrick to take down if his hands were free.
“He is,” he called out, and then kicked some moldy hay in Patrick’s direction.
Patrick coughed and Hendry laughed.
“Let me speculate.” Patrick interrupted the merriment with a dark smile of his own. “Ye used to pull the wings off bugs, and now ye slap lasses around.” He flashed his teeth. “Am I correct?”
Hendry answered with a fist to Patrick’s mouth.
“Aye,” Patrick said quietly and moved forward to wipe the blood from his lip on the ties that bound him. “I thought so.”
“Hendry!” the man who had entered with him shouted, appearing in the light. “There will be time for that later. Can you not control that wretch within you for a full hour?”
Aye, Patrick wanted to agree out loud, at least with the part about Hendry being a wretch.
The other man moved forward, towering over Patrick, who couldn’t stand. Unlike his brother, this one’s wide shoulders blocked out the light behind him.
“I’m Duff Cunningham.”
Patrick tossed him a brief smile. “A pleasure. Now can ye do somethin’ aboot the rope? ’Tis beginnin’ to wear on m’ good nature.”
“Who are you?” Duff Cunningham said as woodenly as the post Patrick was tied to.
“Patrick Campbell of Breadalbane, and ye better have a good reason fer takin’ me from the road. M’ uncle is the Duke of Argyll.” A very distant uncle, but it wasn’t a complete untruth. His great uncle Robert Campbell had once been the earl.
“You weren’t on the road,” the dark giant countered. “You fell at my sister’s feet.”
“Not that close, I’d argue. More like a target at fifty feet.”
He thought he saw a hint of a smile on Duff’s face. If there was one it was gone when he spoke again. “What were you doing at the riverbank?”
That seemed to be the important question of the day. Were these people feuding with his uncles?
“I was lost and thought to refresh m’ horse, which ye have m’ gratitude fer bringin’ back here with me.”
“We didn’t bring it back,” Hendry said. “We left it—”
“Mine is in the third stall on the left.”
Duff stepped out of the stall and looked to the third stall on the left. When he saw that Patrick was correct, he hurried back to the post and bent to check the tight knots around his prisoner’s wrists. When he was satisfied that Patrick couldn’t have left the post to find out where his horse was, he bent to his knees and set his level gaze on him.
“How did you know?”
“He’s m’ horse.”
Duff waited for more but when none came, he straightened again to his full height. “You’re in trouble often and need to know where your horse is in case a quick exit is needed.”
Patrick looked up and offered him a benign smile. “Ye make it sound so unsavory.”
“Verra well then,” Duff said, ignoring Patrick’s light humor and producing a dagger. “If you’re telling the truth you will get your horse back and leave here.” He cut the rope loose from the post but left Patrick’s hands tied.
“Who decides whether or no’ I’m tellin’ the truth?” Patrick asked while he rose.
“My father,” Duff said then led him out of the stable.
Sunlight stung Patrick’s eyes so he held up his bound fists to shield them. He spotted Charlie watching them from behind a short wall and a field beyond. Her dark locks snapped against her face and she cleared them. Her gaze remained on him.
He smiled at her and then fell to his knees when Duff sent his fist into Patrick’s guts.